The Six Person Dialogue
This week’s lectionary reading is from Luke 12, verses 13 through 21 (translation NRSVUE):
13Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
The first thing I noticed about this passage is that there’s a lot of second-person speech happening. Here’s a list of characters we see talking directly to each other:
- Some guy to Jesus (v.13)
- Jesus to some guy (v.14)
- Jesus to the crowd (v.15-16)
- The rich man to himself (v.17-18)
- The rich man to his soul (v.19)
- God to the rich man (v.20)
Also, the first man asks Jesus to speak directly to someone else (tell his brother to split the inheritance), which fits the pattern. In the first three verses, all the direct speech isn’t necessarily unexpected. People talk to Jesus a lot, and most of the time he talks to them too. But as far as parables go, I can’t think of any others where all that happens is people talk to each other (and also to themself, and also to their soul).
Let’s dig in to the Greek.
He’s just a guy
In verse 13, this translation uses the word friend, which I’m not sure I understand. ἄνθρωπος is a very generic word that means person or human. It can also mean humanity in general. As opposed to ἀνήρ, man, or γυνή, woman, it’s not a gendered term. It doesn’t imply age, or status, or ethnicity, or really any characteristic whatsoever beyond the essentially human.
The term friend implies a level of familiarity, which I really don’t see in the text. If anything, the original language suggests the opposite. To me, the broad meaning of the word ἄνθρωπος conveys how Jesus is trying to distance himself from this random person making a random request of him.
On top of this, Jesus begins his parable in verse 16 referring to the rich man as ἄνθρωπος. It’s the very first word of Jesus’ sentence, and the grammar almost seems contorted to put it there.
Whenever words are repeated, it’s a clue to the audience that a connection is being made. In this case, the connection is between the original person talking to Jesus and the rich man in the parable. Reading the passage in English, we can see the connection in the context of the passage: they’re both greedy. What I’m pointing out is that this connection is present not just in the theme, but the very word choice.
Really makes you think
Maybe I’m just conditioned to read everything through a Platonic lens, but I have a hard time not seeing this section as a kind of dialogue. In verse 17, the man thinks using the word διαλογίζομαι, the very word we get the English term dialogue from. It means to think in a rational, reasoning way.
There’s another philosophical term that appears in this passage. The last command the man issues to his soul is be merry; εὐφραίνου. This word is composed of two parts:
- ευ, an adverb meaning well.
- φρονέω, a verb meaning to think. It’s connected to the noun φρήν, which in older Greek is an anatomical term, a part of the body that thinks and has thoughts. (See also the English word phrenology — fun etymology lesson!)
Then in verse 20, God addresses this rich man saying, “Fool!”, ἄφρων! This is also a compound word:
- α, an adverb meaning not. In Greek, sticking an α onto the beginning of a word inverts its meaning. The technical term for this particle is the alpha privative.
- -φρων, a word from φρήν, which I touched on above.
So, in essence, the rich man is saying to himself, “Relax, me, you’re thinking well,” but God says to him, “You’re not thinking at all.” It’s a nice little pun.
Now, εὐφραίνου doesn’t literally mean to think well, but it’s still connected to reasoning because of its etymology. The author of Luke could have used any word meaning be merry. Greek has no shortage of them. But they chose this one, and every choice is significant.
By using a word connected to thinking, the author of Luke sets this passage in the broader context of Greek thought, which means philosophy, which means dialogue.
Then, when God echos the word back, it seems like the two are actually speaking to each other. God is listening and reacting, changing God’s response based on what the rich man is saying, as if they’re having a real conversation. This structure is Platonic Dialogue 101.
Inheritance
God’s question at the end — “the things you have stored up, whose will they be?” — has a very simple answer. They’ll go to the man’s sons, if he has any. Thematically, we’ve come full circle: we began and ended talking about inheritance.
Now, I’m not intimately familiar with first-century Judaean inheritance law. I don’t know with 100% certainty who his property would pass to, or in what proportion. But there absolutely were protocols for who would get it.
The point, of course, is that no matter who ends up with the man’s property, he doesn’t get to keep it. Therefore his accumulation of wealth was ultimately pointless.
The sentiment of the passage is clear: it’s more important to be rich toward God than rich towards this world. But, like…what does that actually mean? It’s a nice sound bite that doesn’t carry a lot of meaning on its own.
What specifically made this man foolish? What should he have done with his abundance instead?
The answer, I think, lies in the man’s address to his soul in verse 19.
19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’
He plans to store up goods so that he can enjoy them at some later date. His profit, and his alone, is what matters to him.
I think of someone else in the Bible who stored up wealth for the future: Joseph, in Genesis. When Egypt had seven years of abundance, he saved up as much as he could in preparation for seven years of famine. But Joseph wasn’t foolish because he acted for the sake of everyone around him, not just for his own benefit.
Wealth isn’t inherently bad, but it’s not a goal in itself. It should be used in alignment with God’s will, since it’s a gift from God. We don’t necessarily need to reject good things, but to enjoy abundance with a blind eye to the needs of others is greed and foolishness.
God of wisdom, you know the fates of all. Grant us knowledge in our foolishness and contentment in our greed. When we have abundance, let us build larger tables rather than larger storehouses. Amen.